How to tell you are doing the work you are supposed to do: when you can cut out three poems, just like that, out of your manuscript as you do the layout your style (because you’re just a control freak that way) before it goes to the designer. You know your narrative, you know what goes. You even know what stays only because some people might demand refunds if it isn’t included.

HAIKU

The cocaine of you.
The hard drunk rock and roll god
damned nearness of you.

TANKA

You with your snakeskin
heart and quarter of moon lost
in your back pocket
seam. Drummer, you ensnare me
in a mandala of lust.

HAIKU

Your love, shapeshifter,
is like tonight’s blood-ripe moon,
coyly cloaked in clouds.

Update: Oops, and there goes another one…

TANKA

Naïvely, I threw
my love into space like a
boomerang, certain
of return. But your love is
a discus, and you took aim.